r
nothing but money; she is a public character, whom to shield would be a
thankless task. When this Reynolds woman added the abomination of
blackmail to her trade, and further attempted the ruin of the man who
had shown her nothing but generosity and consideration, it need hardly
be added that Hamilton would have been a sentimental fool to have
hesitated on any ground but detestation of a public scandal.

He never traced the betrayal of a secret which all concerned had
promised to keep inviolate, but he had his suspicions. Mrs. Croix, now
living in a large house on the Bowling Green, was the animated and
resourceful centre of Jacobinism. She wore a red cap to the theatre and
a tri-coloured cockade on the street. Her _salon_ was the headquarters
of the Republican leaders, and many a plot was hatched in her inspiring
presence. The Virginian Junta were far too clever to put themselves in
the power of a drunkard like Callender, but they were constantly in
collusion with Mrs. Croix. They knew that she feared nothing under
heaven, and that she had devoted herself to Hamilton's ruin. Callender
drew upon her for virus whenever his own supply ran down, and would
have hailed the Reynolds concoction, even had it gone to him naked and
begging. Hamilton saw the shadow of a fair hand throughout the entire
pamphlet, and, indeed, could have traced many an envenomed shaft, since
1793, to a source which once had threatened to cloy him with its
sweetness.

Meanwhile John Adams had been elected President of the United States,
and Thomas Jefferson, Vice-President. Hamilton had made no secret of the
fact that he should prefer to see Thomas Pinckney succeed Washington,
for he contemplated the possibility of Adams in the Executive Chair,
with distrust and uneasiness. In spite of that eminent statesman's
intrepidity, integrity, and loyal Federalism, he was, in Hamilton's
opinion, too suspicious, jealous of influence, and hot headed, to be a
safe leader in approaching storms. With Pinckney as a brilliant and
popular figurehead, Hamilton well knew that his own hand would remain on
the helm. With the irascible old gentleman from Massachusetts in the
Chair, his continued predominance was by no means certain. Washington
once said of Hamilton that he undoubtedly was ambitious, but that his
ambition was of that laudable kind which prompts a man to excel in
whatever he takes in hand; adding that his judgement was intuitively
great. The truth was that